Walking With God, Running in Faith, Soaring by His Strength (Isaiah 40)

Isaiah 40 offers encouragement for weary hearts. In this message, Pastor Chris unpacks how God’s greatness, our weakness, and his Spirit’s power meet to bring strength and renewal. Discover how to keep going when life leaves you drained and how to rise above struggles with hope in the Lord. 

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/17763993

Key Points:

1. Remember who your God is – He reigns over creation and knows you personally (Isaiah 40:21–26).
2. Recognize your weakness – God understands your weariness and invites you to bring your struggles to him (Isaiah 40:27–28; Psalm 13:1).
3. Renew your strength in the Lord – Hope in him, and he will give you power to soar, run, and walk with endurance (Isaiah 40:29–31; Galatians 6:9; Philippians 4:13).

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
 Pastor Chris shares about being overwhelmed by ministry, school, and work at the same time, praying in the church parking lot for strength, and experiencing God’s Spirit empower him when he faithfully showed up to serve.

Notable Quotes:

• “When you’re down, lift up your eyes to the Lord who never tires.”
• “Sometimes God doesn’t remove the storm, but he gives you wings to rise above it.”
• “It’s not let go, let God—it’s let’s go, let God.”

Actionable Takeaways:

• Heart reflection: Remember who God is when life feels overwhelming.
• Daily application: Acknowledge your weakness and invite God’s strength into your day.
• Spiritual step: Choose to hope in the Lord, trusting his timing and provision.
• Practical next step: Memorize Isaiah 40:31 and use it as a prayer when you feel weary.

Scripture References:
 Isaiah 40:1–31; 1 Kings 19:1–9; Psalm 13:1; Galatians 6:9; Philippians 4:13; Micah 6:8

Keywords: Isaiah 40, renewal, strength, hope, weariness, faith, Holy Spirit, eagle wings, perseverance, trust

Challenge: When you feel tired and ready to quit, take one step of faith today to lean on God’s strength and discover his power at work in your weakness.

25.0813de Hope for the Tired, Strength for the Faithful

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

Isaiah 40 is a really interesting passage in a couple of different ways. I don't know how familiar you are with the Old Testament, but Isaiah is considered a major prophet. And it's not his rank. He did have some great prophecies, some of the best prophecies in the Old Testament were from Isaiah. But just because it's big, so major prophets are big books, and minor prophets are little books. But Isaiah chapter 40 is a turning point when you read the book of Isaiah, because Isaiah is speaking for God. He has these prophecies for God, he speaks out for God. He tells the people of Judah, the people of Israel, he tells them what God thinks, what God says, what God is up to, what they can expect, what they need to do to repent. Isaiah chapter 40, it changes. The whole tone changes. God's like, okay, now I want you to encourage the people. I want to help them to see that there's hope. And it's such a great, it's such a great passage in everything. And it's talking about like when they're in captivity, during the Babylonian captivity, and all these things. And the only problem that if you don't understand is it hasn't happened yet. So it's a prophecy. Like a hundred more than 150 years later, this is going to happen. But when it's written in Isaiah, it looks like it already happened and it's already going on. And so some people struggle with the idea that Isaiah could write about the future, like he wrote about Jesus and Isaiah 53 and all of these things. But that was what God was up to in prophecy during that time. So that's a little background of Isaiah, but the passage really is to focus on this idea that you and I, we get weary and tired in the Christian life. We get weary and worn out when we do things on our own strength, when we serve in our own strength, when we try to make ourselves right with God instead of letting God make us right and work through us. When we try to do things on our own power instead of being empowered by the Holy Spirit. And there are times in our life when we are so tired, and maybe that is you today. Maybe you are just worn out. I always like to say, I need a vacation from a vacation. You know, when the kids are little, it's like, okay, what are we doing for a vacation? No, we're taking them here, we're going there, we're doing this, we're doing that. It's like there is no rest time during that vacation. And sometimes people just feel really down and really tired. And I know that sickness can do that. I remember one time I was so tired I slept for a week when I had mono. Or if you are catching something, you might feel tired. Or sometimes if you're dehydrated, you might feel tired and worn out. And so you need to get hydrated. Sometimes you need more protein. Somebody said that tired people rule the world, in which someone else quickly responded, No, tired people ruin the world. So I don't know where you are in that. But okay, so on second and in 1 Kings, very interesting passage. You got Elijah. And so Elijah is doing these great things for God, and he's calling out the false gods. He's calling out the prophets of Baal, and they've there's this big showdown to this offering they've got. It's like a showdown to see whose God can accept the offering, who's God's gonna make it happen? And the prophets of Baal, they tried everything, and Elijah even mocked them in it, nothing happened. And then when it was Elijah's turn, then God came down, like fire from heaven and the offering and the water, everything was consumed. And all these people are like, oh, praise God, he's the real God. And then Elijah said, Hey, grab all of those false prophets of Baal, gather them up, and he had them all killed. And so great spiritual victory. Uh, wonderful time to celebrate. But then wicked Jezebel, Queen Jezebel, said that I'm gonna kill you, Elijah. And then all of a sudden Elijah went into this fearful flight. He like ran and he was so depressed, he asked God to take his life, and it was all these terrible, difficult things. So you would think that Elijah just went through this great time of God, this great display of God, this great thing that says, God is on my side, woman. I don't know what you think you can do to me, but nothing's gonna happen. But instead, and I think this happens to us as Christians too, sometimes we have these great spiritual victories that lead to great times of sadness or depression, or sometimes it's a it's a dangerous time where you might be tempted to fall into sin after a great spiritual victory. But anyway, verse three Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, and while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, he came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die. I have had enough, Lord, take my life. I am no better than my ancestors. Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, Get up and eat. And he looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water, he ate and drank, and then he lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, Get up and eat. The journey is too much for you. So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he travelled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night, and then the Lord appears to Elijah. So that's first Kings 19. So very interesting stories in the Old Testament. You want to read that. The reason I bring that up is because I believe that is a great illustration, a great case of what happens to us in the Christian life sometimes. Sometimes we are serving, sometimes we are excited about what's going on, sometimes we see great results and great victory, and then we just want to give in, we just want to give up, and it causes us to think that we are insignificant. And maybe that's part of the spiritual battle. Satan wants to do everything he can to tell you that you're worthless, tell you that whatever you're doing isn't worthwhile, or that you're working behind the scenes and nobody cares, and you should just give up, you should just quit, you should go home, and maybe even gets you to think that everybody is against you, everybody's coming after you. So, back to Isaiah. Isaiah is told to encourage the people. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 1, starts out. God says, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. And you would think that the Babylonian captivity is over, but it hasn't even started, like I mentioned. That's gonna be 150 years later that they get out of captivity. All right, so number one. Number one, remember who your God is. When you go through these hard times, when you go through these difficulties, when you're not sure what is going on with your life or your faith, when you're worn out from work, there's so many things to do, you just can't seem to do enough. You can't please your boss or your supervisor or the customers aren't bringing in the profit you need, or you can't get the product that you need, or all these different things, and you're so weary, you should turn to God. Or with your family when you're parenting and things don't seem to be working out so well with your kids, you're doing everything, but they're not listening or making bad choices, or whatever it is, your relationships, all those difficult things. When life is difficult, remember God. Remember who your God is, remember what God has done in the past, remember what God can do. We've been doing a series in the Psalms, and there's so many Psalms, the hymns of the Jews of the Old Testament, that we can look at and call out those things and pray those things back to God and receive encouragement and inspiration. All right, so let's look at Isaiah chapter 40, verses 21 to 22. So God reigns over creation. So Isaiah writes, Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? That he sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers, he stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. So, here, these people, and the people that are going to be in Babylonian captivity for all of those years, those people are going to struggle. Now, to think about the Babylonian captivity for a minute, just a quick second. So Isaiah was doing this stuff between BC 39 to 681 BC. So the first wave of Babylonian captivity happened with Daniel and his friends in 605 BC. And Ezekiel was taken away in 597 BC. Judah was under Babylonian captivity from 586 to 539. And that's when Jeremiah was also part of that. So that's a timeline giving you a general idea. But so again, this is speaking to the people in the future about how they're going to feel during that time. And study Bibles are really helpful to help you figure that out. So I like the Life Application Bible study Bible. There are so many other good Bibles. Tyndale has one that has an app, the Filament Bible, that you can take your phone and scan the page and that will give you all the notes that, like the life application notes and the study Bible notes and everything that go with that for you to study along to help you figure this stuff out. But so God is in control. God knows what's going on. God sees your problems, He knows your issues, He looks down from heaven and can see what's going on, and He knows what's going on in your life. You can trust that He can work in His time and His way, but you should call out and pray. You should talk to Him and tell Him how you feel about it. But let me continue on about remembering who your God is. So God sits enthroned, He sees, He knows, He's created, He's in control. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground that He blows on them and they wither and the whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. And you can see that in our political system. Sometimes people that were in control all of a sudden aren't in control. Sometimes world leaders change and things change. And when God thinks the time is right, he can make change. Sometimes we endure poor leaders because of the sin of our community or the sin of our nature, of our nation. Sometimes we unknowingly choose poor leaders because we want them to do what we want them to do and we don't really think about the consequences. Let me continue. Verse 25. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? Who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name? Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. And the part about this verse that I love, and I could talk about much of this for a long time, but I won't. Is that the whole thing that jumps out of this page to me is when I am down, when my circumstances are over my head, when I have more bills than I have money to pay for, when I don't know how I'm gonna pay for the repair, when I don't know how I'm gonna get through this hard thing, when I don't know how I'm gonna get over this broken relationship or how I'm going to recover from a mistake that I made. All of those different things. To know that God knows. God sees, God cares. Verse 26, lift up your eyes and look to the heavens. When you are down, look up to the Lord. Look up to God, look towards God for help in a time in your time of need. All of us go through different struggles. Life is a series of good days and bad days. If things are sunny and beautiful now, you know there's a storm coming. So sometimes storms last for a while and have great effects, damaging effects. And sometimes they're short. But we trust God to get us through the storms. Sometimes the storms are based in the phases of our life. We try to figure out what in the world we're supposed to do with our lives when we're young. And then when we get old, we're trying to figure out what exactly we're supposed to do with our lives, because we're old and we don't have in the beginning, we didn't really know what we're supposed to do or have a career or have a clue. And then the end of our days, we don't really know what we're supposed to do. We had a career, we made our choices, and now it's like we have a lot of time on our hands, or we're not sure about our health or our strength or whatever. And how do we how can we serve God? How can we be usable? How can God use us to be prayer warriors? What can we do? We can continually praise Him. But number two, recognize your weakness. Recognize your weakness. We are all weak in many ways. So we are weak when it comes to standing up for what's right, we're weak when it comes into giving into temptation. We're weak when it comes to having the fortitude to keep coming back, to keep showing up, to keep serving, to keep living for the Lord, especially when we get persecuted, especially when people talk about us or we think people are talking about us, those are all things that can cause us to be weak. But we're especially weak when we feel that God has turned against us and that he's not caring, that he's not listening to us anymore. Verse 27. Why do you complain, Jacob? And why do you say, Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord, my cause is disregarded by my God. God is remembering them by their covenant names. God is remembering them not saying, Oh, you're such a fool, calling them derogatory names, but he's lovingly helping them to remember that they are his chosen people, and that he cares for them. So their complaint had two parts. One, they said, My way is hidden from the Lord, that God doesn't see me, that he doesn't notice what I'm going through, and my causes disregarded. The fear of insignificance that God sees me, but he doesn't care, and he won't act on my behalf. How long will you hide your face from me? Have you ever felt that way before? Have you ever felt like you've been praying and you've been serving and you've been spending time in God's Word? And it's like, God, where are you? I'm just not seeing, not hearing, and not getting that answer to prayer, and it just causes you to just want to throw up your hands and say, Well, I've had enough. But if you stay, if you keep serving, if you keep praying, if you keep on it, eventually you will see the fruits of your labor. Eventually, you will be surprised at what God does through you as you stick to it. You'll be surprised that eventually, one day, someday soon, that you will have a time of joy and peace in the Lord, a time of assurance, a time when things aren't so difficult. Sometimes when people are going through those difficult times too, if you really knew what they were doing, they are not spending time in God's word like you would want them to. They're not like starting out by saying, Lord, let me confess any known sin. Holy Spirit, help me to understand your word as they read through things, trying to apply them to their life, trying to be strategic about what they're reading. Like I've been saying, the Old Testament is great, but you got to make sure that what you're reading in the Old Testament applies to you for today, for this people of this time, not just for those people of that time, those universal truths. And there are so many, but maybe your devotional time, your Bible reading plan, maybe it needs to include some times in the Old Testament and the New Testament, maybe sometime in the Psalms and the Proverbs. But you want to get a good balance of inspiration and encouragement in God's word. And sometimes scripture memory, or if you're not good at memory, just repeating verses over and over again until you remember them, you're really familiar with them, will encourage you, give joy to your heart and help you through. But okay, next verse. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. So God doesn't wear out, God doesn't shut down, God cares, God knows, and God has great wisdom and understanding. Sometimes during that difficult time, while you're waiting and you're trusting, God is moving behind the scenes to work things out in your favor. Or God is developing you to make you more ready and more successful for what He has for you. I'd like to tell the young men and women, young boys and girls, that as they think about someone to marry, to focus on becoming the man or woman of God and that you need to be so that God can bring that man or woman of God into your life and that you will be a match. I've said it many times before. I could have met my wife before when I was younger, because we didn't live that far away from each other, but I wasn't ready. I was not, I don't think I was mature when I met her, but I wasn't mature enough to meet her at the time. I needed to go through some things, learn some things, have some experiences to help prepare me and get me ready for that. Maybe God hears your prayer, he knows what you need, and he's just working behind the scenes to prepare you, to help you to be ready and to get everything in order so that things work out in God's plan at the right time. And if it were now, it would be too soon. So trust, be faithful and trust. And he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. That is a thing as we continue to grow older that we have often less strength and less ability to do athletic things, but strength to the weary increases the power of the weak. He can strengthen you in your hard times, he can strengthen you at work, he can strengthen you in your relationships, he can strengthen you in your faith, he can use you to strengthen others. So I'm gonna show a video real quick, and then we'll look at point number three about labor and work because God created work and God cares about us.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

From the classroom to the kitchen, from the job site to the boardroom, from early mornings to late nights, work is part of the rhythm of life. In the beginning, God created us to work, to create, to build, to learn and to care. But he also gave us a gift, a rhythm of rest, a reminder that our worth isn't in our productivity, and that true rest is found in him. So this Labor Day, we pause, we honor the work we've been given, and we thank God for the strength to do it. We accept God's calling on our lives, and we receive the rest He provides. Because in Christ, our work has purpose and our rest is sacred. To all the workers and dreamers, to the learners and leaders, to the parents and teachers, and to all who labor in love. This year, may you lead with integrity, may you serve with strength, may you work with joy, and may you rest end with great. Happy Labor Day.

Chris T 20:59

Renew your strength in the Lord. Renew your strength in the Lord. So this is a wonderful verse to claim, a wonderful verse to remember, a wonderful verse to think of. Verse 31. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, but they will walk and not be faint. And when you think about that, you think about, okay, who is this for? It's not just everybody that gets their strength renewed. It's those who hope in the Lord, those who trust in the Lord, those who wait for the Lord as we follow through, as we do the things of God. So we trust God, we serve God, we put Him first. And there are so many ways that we can apply this to our life. But let me just look at these three ideas real quick. Okay, soaring on wings like eagles. It always makes me laugh when people in different parts of the country are like, oh, it's the majestic bald eagle. You never see those very much. Oh, I just wish I could go somewhere and see bald eagles. And I'm like, you can definitely see a lot of bald eagles at the Virginia landfill. They're all in the trees, they're everywhere. And so we're blessed because we see them often. It's been windy lately, especially this week, as I've been preparing for this message. And I've seen quite a few of them doing this exact thing, soaring in the air, just riding the wind with their monstrous wings, their great strength, pretty amazing. But they don't flap their wings to get to the high altitude. When they get to the wind, when they're in the wind, they spread out their wings and then they ride above. They ride above the clouds. They do amazing things. Job 39, 27, does the eagle soar at your command and build its nest on high? The National Eagle Center says most birds hide when storms come, but eagles spread their wings and let the storm lift them higher. So God may not remove you from the storm, but he may help you to spread your wings and get over it, get above it, see beyond it. And then there's running without growing, weary. So sometimes as we go through life, it just seems like we're constantly running and we're constantly weary. I do know that the more, usually the more you run, the more endurance you build up, and the more strength that you have. But Galatians 6 9 says, Let us not become weary in doing good. And Philippians 4 13 says, I can do all this through him who gives me strength. So as I mentioned in the beginning, Elijah in 1 Kings 19, he went through this difficult time, and an angel fed him and all this stuff, but then he still had a four 40-day journey to go through, and then a meeting with God. And so life continues on, but God can help us through. He can help us to keep moving forward without growing weary. And then to walk and not be faint. So much of life is constantly just moving forward. With parenting, with work, with our lives, we just keep moving forward. We keep going through the routine, we keep walking through our days, keep doing the same thing. And when we have a good schedule, when we have a good rhythm, when we have a good mix of spending time in God's word and serving and praising and experiencing life and even walking with the Lord through difficulties as we're led by the Holy Spirit, we can experience good things. Micah 6 8 says, What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your Lord. And that's what we are to do, the way that we are supposed to do it. God created us to do work. Work is a gift from God. When you're doing the right work, there's a lot of joy in it. Sometimes you go to a job you don't like so that you can fund your hobby or do things that you do like. Sometimes people find serving in the church more rewarding than serving at work. But when we work for the Lord, when we do his will, his way, he can reward us, and it can be a good thing. And as the worship team is about to come up here, you guys can come up here right now. But I just wanted to, you some of you have heard this before, maybe some of you haven't. But there was a time in my life when I was working full time and I was taking classes from two different Bible colleges, and I was a volunteer youth pastor in my church, and I would show up to church on Wednesday nights, and I was so tired. And I would pray in the parking lot. I'd be like, Lord, I am so tired. Please help me. And then I was faithful to show up. I was faithful to not call in and go, I'm too tired. I was faithful to show up. And every night I showed up to do that. It's like the Holy Spirit kicked in, helped me to apply what I had prepared for a lesson to the kids, helped me in all of those things. And this isn't let go, let God. It's let's go let God and trust Him to help you get things done. Let me just pray. Lord Jesus, I thank you for this time. I thank you for your word. There's so many more things I could say about it. It's so amazing the things that you have placed in your word for us to learn from. Lord, help us to be trusting. Help us to trust that when we're faithful to show up, that the Holy Spirit's going to empower us to do your will. Help us to wait out the low times, the quiet times, the sad times, when we're waiting for you to show up. And just know that at the right time, in the right way, that you will answer our prayers according to your will, and that we will have a continuous stream, a continuous list of God sightings, when you've answered prayer, when you've helped us through, when you've encouraged us, and all of the good things. Lord, help us to apply this passage. And I thank you for Labor Day and all of the works that you allow us to do and the way that you've created us to get stuff done. So we just thank you. If there's anybody here that doesn't know you as our Lord and Savior, we pray that they would pick up one of the How to Find God in the New Testaments or ask me or one of us, what does it mean to be saved? How can I be a Christ follower? What does it mean to trust the Lord with my life? So we just pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.